‘One hundred and eighty,’ boomed the man in the rented tux.
On the outer rim of the solar system, where the planets roll, lax, dark and lifeless, appeared nine small white points of light which were definitely not registered upon any directory of the heavens. They moved upon a level trajectory and travelled at what appeared to be an even and leisurely pace. Given the vast distances which they were covering during the course of each single second, however, this was obviously far from being the case.
Upon the flight deck of the leading Cerean man o’ war, the Starship Sandra, stood the Captain. One Lombard Omega by name, known to some as Lord of a Thousand Suns, Viceroy of the Galactic Empire and Crown Prince of Sirius, he was a man of average height with high cheekbones and a slightly tanned complexion. He bore an uncanny resemblance to a young Jack Palance and, even when travelling through the outer reaches of the cosmic infinite, smelt strongly of creosote.
‘Set a course for home,’ he said, affecting a noble stance and pointing proudly into space. ‘We have conquered the galaxy and now return in triumph to our home world. Ceres, here we come.’
The navigator, who bore a striking resemblance to his Captain, but whose rank merited a far less heavily braided uniform and fewer campaign ribbons, tapped out a series of instructions into a console of advanced design.
‘Goodness me,’ said he, as the computer guidance system flashed up an unexpected reply to his instructions upon a three-dimensional screen. ‘Now there’s a funny thing.’
Lombard Omega leaned over his shoulder and squinted into the glowing display of nine orbiting worlds.
‘Where’s the fragging planet gone?’ he asked.
‘One hundred and forty,’ shouted the adjudicator, oblivious to what was going on at the outer edge of the solar system. ‘The Horsemen needs ninety-seven.’
‘If they aren’t cheating,’ said Pooley, ‘they are playing a blinder of a game.’
‘Oh, they’re cheating all right,’ Omally replied, ‘although I don’t think the Professor has worked out quite how yet.’
In truth the Professor had not; he had watched Young Jack like a hawk and was certain that he had observed no hint of trickery. Surely the Horsemen could not be winning by skill alone?
Billy ‘Banjoed’ Breton, the Horsemen’s inebriate reserve, was suddenly up on the oche. The very idea of a team fielding a reserve in a championship match was totally unheard of, the role of reserve being by tradition filled by the pub’s resident drunk, who acted more as mascot and comedy relief than player.
A rumble of disbelief and suspicion rolled through the crowd. Two of the Horsemen’s team pointed Billy in the direction of the board. ‘Over there,’ they said. Billy aimed his dart, flight first.
‘Young Jack is having a pop at the Professor,’ said Omally. ‘He is definitely working some kind of a flanker.’
A look of perplexity had crossed Professor Slocombe’s face. He cast about for a reason, but none was forthcoming. A gentle tap at his elbow suddenly marshalled his thoughts. ‘There is one outside and one by the machine,’ said Edgar Allan Poe. Professor Slocombe nodded.
‘May I ask the purpose of the game?’
‘It is a challenge match between the hostelry known as the Four Horsemen and our own beloved Flying Swan,’ Professor Slocombe replied telepathically.
‘Then may I ask why you allow your opponents to have their missiles guided by a spirit form?’ A smile broke out upon Professor Slocombe’s face which did not go unnoticed by John Omally.
‘He’s sussed it,’ said John.
Professor Slocombe leant close to the ear of Young Jack. ‘Have you ever heard me recite the rite of exorcism?’ he asked. ‘I have it down to something of a fine art.’
Young Jack cast the old man the kind of look which could deflower virgins and cause babies to fill their nappies. ‘All right,’ said he, ‘we will play it straight.’
‘That you will never do. But simply chalk that one up and be advised.’
‘Forty-seven,’ bawled the adjudicator, who was growing hoarse.
‘Unlucky,’ said Professor Slocombe.
‘The Swan need sixty-eight.’ The Swan got it with little difficulty.
Lombard Omega ran up and down the flight deck, peering through the plexiglass portholes and waving his fists in the air. ‘Where’s it gone?’ he ranted at intervals. ‘Where’s it phnarrging gone?’
His navigator punched all he could into the console and shrugged repeatedly. ‘It just isn’t there,’ he said. ‘It’s gone, caput, finite, gone.’
‘It must be there! It was gluushing there when we left it!’
The navigator covered his ears to the Cerean obscenities. ‘It honestly isn’t, now,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of debris about, though, a veritable asteroid belt.’
‘You find something and find it quick,’ growled his Commanding Officer, ‘or you go down the boog chute into hyperspace.’
The navigator bashed away at the console like a mad thing. ‘There’s no trace,’ he whispered despairingly, ‘the entire system’s dead.’ He tapped at the macroscopic intensifier powered by the trans-perambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter. ‘Oh no it isn’t, look, there’s a signal.’
Lombard was at his side in an instant. ‘Bring it up then, you wally. Bring the thrugging thing up.’
The navigator enlarged the image upon the three-dimensional screen. ‘It’s on Planet Earth,’ he said. ‘A triangulation and a ley image, the constellation of the Plough surely, and look there.’
Lombard looked there.
‘One third up from the base line of the triangulation, a beacon transmitting a signal. The coordinates of an approach run, that’s where they are!’
‘Hm.’ Lombard stroked his Hollywood chin. ‘The blursturds have moved closer to the Sun. Wise move, wise merching move. Take us in then. Earth full steam ahead. Lock into autopilot, the beacon will guide us in. Anybody got a roll-up?’
Omally rolled a cigarette as the Professor joined them at the table. ‘You found them out, then?’ he asked between licks.
‘I don’t think we’ve entirely got the better of him,’ the old man replied. ‘He’s a trick or two up his sleeve yet, I believe.’
‘I won’t ask what that one turned out to be.’
‘The Swan lead by one game to nil,’ croaked the adjudicator. ‘Second game on. Horsemen to throw.’
As this was a championship match, by local rules, the losing team threw first. Young Jack ran his forked tongue about the tip of his dart. ‘Straight and true this time, Professor,’ quoth he.
‘With the corner up,’ the old man replied.
Young Jack flung his darts in such rapid succession that they were nothing more than a triple blur. They each struck the board ‘straight and true’ within the wired boundaries of the treble twenty, which was nothing more nor less than anybody had expected. The grinning demonologist strode to the board and tore out his darts with a vengeance.
‘I should like very much to see the fellow miss once in a while,’ Pooley told the Professor. ‘Just to give the impression that he isn’t infallible.’ Professor Slocombe whispered another Latin phrase and Young Jack knocked his pint of mild into his father’s lap. ‘Thank you,’ said Jim, ‘I appreciated that.’
Archie Karachi was throwing for the Swan. Dressed this evening in a stunning kaftan, oblivious to the damage wrought upon his kitchen, he was definitely on form. Archie had a most unique manner of play. As a singles man, his technique brought a tear to the eye of many a seasoned player. Scorning the beloved treble twenty, he went instead for bizarre combinations which generally had the chalks-man in a panic of fingers and thumbs. On a good night with luck at his elbow he could tear away an apparent two hundred in three throws. Even when chalked up, this still had his opponents believing that he had thrown his shots away. Tonight he threw a stunning combination which had the appearance of being a treble nineteen, a double thirteen and a bull’s-eye, although it was hard to be certain.
The d
egree of mental arithmetic involved in computing the final total was well beyond the man on the chalks and most of the patrons present. When the five hundred and one was scratched out and two hundred and fifty-seven appeared in its place nobody thought to argue.
‘I admire that,’ said Professor Slocombe. ‘It is a form of negative psychology. I will swear that if the score does not come up in multiples of twenty, nobody can work it out.’
‘I can,’ said Omally, ‘but he is on our side.’
‘I can’t,’ said Pooley. ‘He pulls his darts out so quickly I couldn’t even see what he scored.’
‘Ah,’ said Omally, ‘here is a man I like to watch.’
The Four Horsemen’s most extraordinary player had to be the man Kelly. He was by no means a great darts-man, but for sheer entertainment value he stood alone. It must be understood that the wondrous scores previously recorded are not entirely typical of the play as a whole, and that not each member of the team was a specialist in his field. The high and impossible scores were the preserve of the very few and finest. Amongst each team, the Swan and the Horsemen being no exception, there were also able players, hard triers, and what might be accurately described as the downright desperate.
The man Kelly was one of the latter. When he flung a dart it was very much a case of stand aside lads, and women and children first. The man Kelly was more a fast bowler than a darts player.
The man Kelly bowled a first dart. It wasn’t a bad one and it plunged wholeheartedly in the general direction of the board. Somewhere, however, during the course of its journey the lone projectile suddenly remembered that it had pressing business elsewhere. The man Kelly’s dart was never seen again.
‘A little off centre?’ the player asked his fuming and speechless captain.
His second throw was a classic in every sense of the word. Glancing off the board with the sound of a ricocheting rule bullet it tore back into the assembled crowd, scattering friend and foe alike and striking home through the lobe of Old Pete’s right ear.
The crowd engulfed the ancient to offer assistance. ‘Don’t touch it,’ bellowed the old one. ‘By God, it has completely cured the rheumatism in my left kneecap.’
Lombard Omega scrutinized the instrument panel and swore between his teeth. ‘I can’t see this,’ he said at length. ‘This does not make any falagering sense. I mean, be reasonable, our good world Ceres cannot just vanish away like plash down a snaffpit in the twinkling of a plunching glumpet.’
The navigator whispered a silent prayer to his chosen deity. It was an honour to serve upon the flagship of the Cerean battle fleet, but it was a hard thing indeed to suffer the constant stream of obscenity which poured from his commander’s mouth. ‘We have been away for a very long time,’ he ventured. ‘More than six thousand years, Earth time.’
‘Earth time?Earth plod-screnching time? What is plod-screnching trumbuck-dworbing Earth time, when it’s at home to a grey-kurgged-namblat?’
‘Well, as target world, it must be considered to be standard solar time.’
Lombard Omega spat on the platinum-coated deck and ground the spittle in with a fibreglass heel. ‘This doesn’t half get my dander up,’ said he.
Standard solar time was approaching ten-fifteen of the p.m clock, and the Four Horsemen and the Flying Swan now stood even at two games all and one to play for the Shield. Tension, which had been reaching the proverbial breaking-point, had now passed far beyond that, and chaos, panic, and desperation had taken its place. Omally had ground seven Biros into oblivion and his book now resembled some nightmare of Einsteinian cross-calculation. ‘I sincerely believe that the ultimate secrets of the universe might well be found within this book,’ said Pooley, leafing over the heavily-thumbed pages. For his outspokenness, he received a blow to the skull which sent him reeling. Omally was at present in no mood for the snappy rejoinder.
‘For God’s sake get another round in,’ said Professor Slocombe. Omally left the table.
‘Forgive me if you will,’ said Pooley, when the Irishman was engaged in pummelling his way through the crowd towards the bar, ‘but you do remember that we are under imminent threat of annihilation by these lads from Ceres. I mean, we are still taking it seriously, aren’t we?’
Professor Slocombe patted Pooley’s arm. ‘Good show,’ he said. ‘I understand your concern. It is always easy to surround oneself with what is safe and comfortable and to ignore the outre threats which lurk upon the borderline. Please be assured that we have done everything that can be done.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jim, ‘but strange as it may seem, I do get a little anxious once in a while.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ croaked the adjudicator in a strangled voice, ‘the end is near and we must face the final curtain.’ There were some boos and a few cheers. ‘The last match is to play, the decider for the Challenge Shield, and I will ask for silence whilst the two teams prepare themselves.’
A respectful hush fell upon the Swan. Even the boy Rathbone ceased his game. However, this was not through his being any respecter of darts tournaments, but rather that his last two-bob bit had run out, and he was forced up to the bar for more change.
‘It is the playoff, five hundred and one to gain. By the toss, first darts to the Horsemen, good luck to all, and game on.’
Professor Slocombe’s eyes swung towards the Horsemen’s team. Something strange seemed to have occurred within their ranks. Old Jack had declined to take his darts and sat sullenly in his wheelchair. The man Kelly was nowhere to be seen, and the other disembodied members of the team had withdrawn to their places of perpetual night and were apparently taking no more interest in the outcome of the game.
Alone stood Young Jack, hollow-eyed and defiant.
‘He means to play it alone,’ said the Professor. ‘I do not believe that it is against the rules.’
‘By no means,’ said Omally. ‘A man can take on a regiment, should he so choose. As a bookmaker I find such a confrontation interesting, to say the least.’
The Swan’s patrons found it similarly so and Omally was forced to open book upon his shirt sleeves.
Young Jack took the mat. He gave the Professor never a glance as he threw his stygian arrows. To say that he actually threw them, however, would be to give a false account of the matter, for at one moment the darts were in his hand, and in another, or possibly the same, they were plastered into the darts board. No-one saw them leave nor enter, but all agreed that the score was an unbeatable multiple of twenty.
‘One hundred and eighty,’ came a whispered voice.
Norman stepped to the fore. Although unnoticed by the throng, his darts now gave off an electrical discharge which disabled television sets three streets away and spoiled telephonic communications a mile off.
‘One hundred and eighty,’ came a still small voice, when he had done his business.
Young Jack strode once more into the fray. His eyes shone like a pair of Cortina reversing lamps and a faint yellow fog rose from the corners of his mouth. He turned his head upon its axis and grinned back over his shoulders at the hushed crowd. With hardly a glance towards the board, he flung his darts. The outcome was a matter for the Guinness Book of Records to take up at a later date.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Professor Slocombe. ‘I am missing something, but I do not know what it is.’
‘We are scoring equal,’ said Omally, ‘he needs but one unfortunate error.’
‘I am loath to intervene, John.’
‘It might get desperate, Professor, say a few words in the old tongue, just to be on the safe side.’
‘We will wait a bit and see.’
‘He is closing for the kill,’ said John.
Professor Slocombe shook his head. ‘I still cannot see it, he appears to be winning by skill alone.’
‘God bless him,’ said Pooley.
Omally raised a fist towards his companion. ‘We are talking about the Swan’s trophy here,’ he said, waggling the terror weapon towards Po
oley. ‘This is no joke.’
‘One day,’ said Jim calmly, ‘I shall turn like the proverbial worm and take a terrible retribution upon you, Omally, for all the blows you have administered to my dear head.’
‘Sssh,’ went at least a dozen patrons. ‘Uncle Ted is up.’
Uncle Ted, Brentford’s jovial greengrocer, was possibly the most loved man in the entire district. His ready smile and merry wit, his recourse to a thousand cheer-some and altruistic bons mots, of the ‘laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone’ variety, brought joy into the lives of even the most manic of depressives. It was said that he could turn a funeral procession into a conga line, and, although there is no evidence to show that he ever took advantage of this particular gift, he was never short of a jocular quip or two as he slipped a few duff sprouts into a customer’s carrier-bag.
Omally, who could not find it within himself to trust any man who would actually deal in, let alone handle, a sprout, found the greengrocer nauseous to the extreme degree. That smile could make a Samaritan commit suicide,’ he said.
Uncle Ted did a little limbering-up knee-work, made flexing motions with his shoulders, and held a wet finger into the air. ‘Is the wind behind us?’ he asked, amidst much laughter from his supporters. He waved at the smoke-filled air with a beermat. ‘Which way’s the board then? Anybody got a torch?’
Omally groaned deeply within the folds of his beard. ‘Get on with it, you twerp,’ he muttered.
Uncle Ted, who for all his inane clowning, was well aware that a wrong move now could cost him his livelihood, took a careful aim whose caution was disguised behind a bout of bum wriggling. His first dart creased into the treble twenty with very little to spare.
‘Where did it land then?’ he asked, cupping his hand to his forehead and squinting about. His supporters nudged one another, cheered and guffawed. ‘What a good lad,’ they said. ‘Good old Uncle Ted.’
Ted looked towards the board and made a face of surprise upon sighting his dart. ‘Who threw that?’ he asked.